Health and Indigenous affairs correspondent

Passengers claiming to be refugees say they are in a leaking boat 300 kilometres off Christmas Island after spending two weeks at sea during a non-stop journey from India.

After being contacted by a refugee advocate, Fairfax Media spoke to two of the 153 people allegedly onboard the boat, who told of their plight via satellite phone.

A female passenger, who was a Tamil, said the boat was carrying 37 children and 32 women.

''We need some help,'' she said. ''We are refugees.'' The woman said they did not pay any money to board the boat on June 13.

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Another man, who spoke Tamil came to the phone saying, ''We have come to Christmas Island because we don't have anything. We have travelled all the way from India.

''The boat is damaged, it is leaking,'' he said. ''There are children, including infants and we are unable to manage.''

Asylum seekers on board the boat say they were given rice and fish by Indonesian fishing boats.

The boat allegedly left India from Puducherry in the south of India, yet no vessel carrying asylum seekers has successfully reached Australian shores since December 19.

However, this boat is likely to be a major challenge to the government's turn back policy, given it has not departed from Indonesia, nor stopped to pick up supplies somewhere closer to Australia during its two-week journey.

In March, the Abbott government tripled the amount of money spent on the large orange lifeboats used to tow back asylum seekers breaching Australian waters to Indonesia to $7.5 million as part of its tough border control policy.

It is unlikely the government could return the boat to India in one of these orange lifeboats, given their short-trip purpose.

Fairfax Media has informed the Australian Maritime Safety Authority of the details of the boat.

Immigration Minister Scott Morrison would not comment on the vessel, nor its position, but said there had been ''no significant events involving extreme risk of safety of life at sea''.

''For operational security reasons, the government does not confirm or otherwise comment on reports of on-water activities in relation to Operation Sovereign Borders or disclose details of any operations other than where there have been significant events involving extreme risk of safety of life at sea.

The government has no such reports of significant events,'' a spokesman for the minister said.

Under government policy, people who arrive by boat without a visa will be taken to Nauru and Papua New Guinea's offshore detention centres, which have been widely criticised for their inadequate and inhumane treatment of asylum seekers.

Last week, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres described Australia's policy of deterring asylum seekers who arrive by boat to seek protection as ''very strange''.